


not the sentimental type

by goodbyechunkylemonmilk



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Queer Character of Color, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodbyechunkylemonmilk/pseuds/goodbyechunkylemonmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a respectful thing to think, but Danny's not exactly surprised when Jackson dies from doing something stupid (sad yes, surprised no). The coming back to life is unexpected.</p><p>Set during 2x11 and 2x12</p>
            </blockquote>





	not the sentimental type

Danny prides himself on staying relatively unattached. He dates, sure, but the relationships never go anywhere, which is completely intentional and definitely has nothing to do with how many times he's been told he's too into his best friend. Whenever he gets tired of Beacon Hills and its smallness (both in area and in minds), he takes solace in the fact that after high school, he'll go to college and his parents will relocate and none of them will ever look back. Strangers demand to know where he's _really_ from and some of the guys refuse to change while he's in the locker room, and the only thing that keeps a smile on his face is the promise of escaping.

Jackson's never factored into his plans somehow, probably because he throws a wrench in them by being the attachment Danny wishes he'd known to avoid back in kindergarten. So his first thought when the lights on the field flicker back to life is, “Problem solved.” Because his brain's actually refusing to process this; Jackson's not dead because he _can't_ be dead, so morbid jokes are okay. Jackson will get back up and if Danny ever chooses to confide in him, they'll laugh about the whole thing. But then Jackson, who seems to have a predilection for fucking with his plans, doesn't get back up.

Instead of crowding around the body like everyone else, Danny stands frozen in place, unable to think of anything but Jackson's warning to stay in the goal, which, in spite of its newfound irrelevance, holds some weight as the last thing his best friend ever said to him. He takes a few abortive steps closer, just near enough to see blood and hear, “He's not breathing.” Then he runs. He doesn't need to see Jackson like this, doesn't need to know the specifics of his death so he can imagine it more vividly. He runs because there was a time when he could have fixed this, some point when he could have reached out and stopped Jackson from making a fatally stupid decision. But instead he waited until it was too late and made a few token gestures and now his best first  _only_ friend is dead. When Danny shuts his eyes, all he can see is the look on Jackson's face before the game, intense and serious and completely powerless because he knew something was going terribly wrong and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Danny drove himself to the game, but he doesn't go to his car, doesn't even go in the direction of the parking lot. (His car is parked next to Jackson’s and therefore not an option.) He ends up in the woods bordering the school, knowing as he moves through them that he's doing something stupid, something Jackson caliber. (Respect for the dead does not seem to come naturally to him, perhaps as a result of his inability to process that Jackson now falls into that category.) As a concession to his own common sense, which grief can't completely overpower, he doesn't venture too far in, instead making sure to stay on the outskirts. If he squints, he can see the commotion on the field. He doesn't squint.

His parents' frantic voices shock him out of his thoughts. They're calling his name and god, he didn't even think about how it would look. Someone killed Jackson and then he disappeared without even his phone. Of course they're worried. He stands up, swipes at the tears on his face, and starts making his way out of the woods. The lights from the field are still on, so he can see his parents clearly. He calls out to them, and before he can move more than a few feet, their arms wrap around him as well as they can when he's still wearing his pads. He's not big on physical affection normally, but now all he wants is to go limp in their embrace and let them deal with everything.

“We were so worried. The sheriff's son disappeared too and we thought—” His mom presses a kiss to his forehead. “Oh, Danny.”

“Sorry I ran.”

“We understand.” His dad rests a hand on his shoulder. “It's a lot to deal with. Are you ready to go back?”

“Yeah, I'm okay.” It's a clear lie, but they don't call him out on it. He'd hoped, stupidly, that Jackson would be all right somehow, but they won't quite meet his eyes, and he figures he should have known better.

They offer to drive him home, and he takes them up on it. His hands are shaking and his car's still next to Jackson's and he can't focus because the image of his best friend lying still and bloody on the ground won't go away.

His mom tries to make eye contact with him in the rear-view mirror. “Danny?” He slumps down, arms crossed. “Don't wanna talk.” Obstinately refusing to speak combines with sitting in the back to make him feel like a little kid again, except without any security in the belief that his parents can fix what's gone wrong.

When they get home, Danny heads to his room without speaking, and his parents don't try to stop him, assuming he needs time to himself. His mother even says as much to his father when he moves to follow Danny upstairs.  _He needs space._ Danny considers the words carefully. He needs Jackson alive. He needs to not be at fault. He needs the image of Jackson's scared face to stop warring with the image of his corpse for dominance in his mind. But space? Space means being alone with his thoughts, which is less than desirable. Regardless, space is what he has, and he doesn't know how to ask for anything else, so he makes do. He sneaks to the bathroom, opens the medicine cabinet, and grabs the first thing he figures will knock him out. It turns out to be cold medicine, which is quite possibly the least cool thing he's ever done, the kind of thing Jackson would laugh at him for, especially considering that he  _does_ have access to alcohol. It's just that drinking himself into oblivion takes too long. He doesn't want his mind dulled; he wants to be unconscious, to shut down and stop thinking.

He wakes up disappointingly soon, and his best friend's still dead. He wakes up and his best friend's still dead and his phone's vibrating against his wooden bedstand, which feels somehow insensitive. He didn't always snap to attention when Jackson called before, but now the knowledge that the person calling cannot possibly be the right one is enough to make answering a daunting task. It goes to voicemail three times before curiosity gets the best of him and he sits up to grab his phone.

_Three missed calls. Jackson._ He stares at the screen as if determined to commit it to memory before dismissing the notification.  _Three new voicemails._ He could call back, he knows, settle this right now, but he's not prepared to find out who's on the other end of the call and thoughtless enough to do this, not ready to have these unrealistic hopes dashed by Lydia's cool, crisp voice telling him she's just trying to match the insulting names in Jackson's phone to real people. (But she's not actually that cruel, and he'll feel bad when he's more clear-headed.) So he listens to the voicemails first, assuming they're just white noise from before the caller hung up.

“Danny!” It's undeniably Jackson's voice, and he almost drops the phone. “So you didn't answer. Fine, dude, that's fine, it's only your dead best friend come back to life. Definitely not a priority. Whatever, I'm sure you got self-destructively drunk to mourn me and you're still sleeping it off. At least that'd _better_ be why you're not answering. If you don't have a serious grief hangover when I get to your house, I'm going to feel so betrayed. Oh, also I'm a couple minutes away. Don't worry about letting me in. I'm good.”

The second is more of the same, but the third is notable in that it ends with, “Shut up, Stilinski,” after a voice starts talking in the background. “Yeah, Stilinski's driving me since my Porsche is—” His voice is muffled for the next part, like he's holding the phone loosely against his chest. “Where's my Porsche? Is it still at the school?” Then, back to normal, “He doesn't know. Useless. Don't worry; I won't let him in the house. Anyway, since my parents are out of town, you get to be the first to bear witness to my Christ-like return. Congratu— Stilinski, I don't give a shit if you helped save me shut the fuck up. Go hit on my girlfriend some more, why don't you.” Danny notes the negative feelings prompted by Jackson's use of the word  _girlfriend_ and files them away to deal with when he's not listening to the weirdest voicemail of his life.

Danny hears a thump outside his window, immediately followed by Jackson jumping through and landing neatly, all while smirking like nothing weird's going on. The effect should be ruined by the fact that he's wearing ill-fitting pants he has hold bunched at his waist, but Danny's too busy panicking to notice.

“You don't look like you've been crying.” With anyone else, it would be a joke, but this is Jackson, so it's a wholly serious statement accompanied by a hurt expression he fails to hide.

“You're _dead_.” Which Danny thinks he manages rather calmly considering what exactly he's just had to say.

“Apparently not.”

“I saw you die.” His first thought is that it's a hallucination, that it _has_ to be a hallucination, but he wouldn't imagine Jackson like this. This version is missing something: the uncomfortable edge that stemmed from a fear of being inadequate, the edge Danny's grown to accept as an inextricable part of him. (That will come back later because it's not, after all, a fear based on _logic_.) He swallows hard several times and decides that whatever this is, he's going to enjoy having his best friend back as long as he can, then pulls him into a hug that stems more from a need for reassurance than affection. “I know we don't really, y'know, do this, but I just spent kind of a lot of time thinking you were dead, so.” It's not exactly true that they don't hug; more accurate is that they don't hug sober. They've stumbled out of clubs more than once with Jackson's arm around Danny's shoulders and voice hot in his ear, but unimpaired, they avoid anything more tactile than fistbumps.

Jackson tolerates it for about a minute, even hugs back, then says awkwardly, “So don't get all offended or whatever but this. Is kinda gay.”

Danny lets out a surprised laugh. “I will kill you for real. I thought you were fucking dead, asshole. Let me have my moment.”

“Yeah, well, so did I.” Jackson's mouth loses the smirk for a moment, turning down at the corners before he remembers himself. Seeing him alive was enough to push away the worries momentarily, but Danny's reminded that there was plenty to be concerned about well before the lacrosse game. “There's a lot I need to explain to you.”

“Can it wait?”

Jackson's face hardens. Gone are both the easy enthusiasm of his entrance and the vulnerability that made a fleeting appearance. “ _Fine._ If you don't want to, it's—”

“Jackson, that's not it. I just want to— I thought you were _dead_. I don't think I'd be very good at talking right now.” He feels weak admitting it, but he's still shaken. He can't think past his desire to grab Jackson and make sure he's solid, that he's actually here and won't suddenly double over and start bleeding. “I just need to process.” The raw emotion in his voice must convince Jackson, because he relaxes.

“Fine, if you're going to be a pussy about it.”

Danny snorts. “I'm pretty sure it's called being an actual human being, but I guess you wouldn't know. Just. Don't fucking do that again.”

“What, die?” Now Jackson's got the smirk back, which is equal parts frustrating and reassuring. “I'll try not to.”

“I mean don't get involved in something stupidly dangerous without telling me. Ideally you wouldn't get involved at all, but I don't expect you to make good choices, just to inform me of your bad ones. Which is not that much to ask, I don't think.”

“Fine.” Danny suspects that Jackson doesn't mean it, or that he does but won't follow through, but at least it's a start, something to hold him to when he screws up.

“Right. And you said your parents are still out of town?”

“Yeah. They never even got the message.”  


“So you can stay over then. No one at home needs reassurance you're really alive?”

“Nope. Just you. Fucking sap.”

“Can't believe I ever missed you.” It's oddly easy to fall back into their old rhythms a few hours after he worked to accept that they never would.

“Don't beat yourself up about it; I _am_ amazing.”

“Just making me doubt my choices even more.” Danny tries and fails to suppress a yawn. “Look, it turns out thinking your best friend's dead isn't conducive to sleeping well, so I'm going to pass out if that's all right with you.”

Jackson looks at him expectantly. “I'm not sleeping on the couch. I was  _dead_ earlier, dude. Move.” Danny scoots back to make room, and Jackson climbs in. It shouldn't be weird; they've slept in the same bed before, but like the hugging, it's mostly the domain of drunk them. His bed isn't small, but he and Jackson are both taller and more muscular than the average teenager, making it a tight fit.

He wakes up with Jackson's face pressed against his neck and does his best to pull away, though his back meets the wall almost immediately. Clearly he's still emotional over everything that's happened, because he can't help thinking that Jackson looks kind of—sweet like this, with his hair ungelled and no smirk on his face. Then, thinking about the lack of a smirk, he notices that Jackson is actually frowning and, more worryingly, making small noises that seem in some way inhuman. Now that Danny's properly awake, he realizes too that Jackson is restless, shifting every so often, which explains how they ended up so close together. He waits a moment, mulling the situation over, then shoves Jackson hard.

He wakes up abruptly, which is new. He's never been easy to wake; it's always taken strategically-placed alarm clocks and several minutes of prodding to get him even vaguely conscious, but now his eyes shoot wide open. He seems to be taking a mental inventory of his surroundings, and they must come up short because he tenses before focusing on Danny and letting out an audible sigh of relief.

“Were you having a nightmare?”  


“What? No.” Danny raises an eyebrow, and Jackson continues defensively, “'M not a _kid_. I just didn't remember how I got here for a second.” He frowns after he says it, like it's more than he'd have given away fully aware, though Danny's still not sure of the significance.

“Okay.” He promises himself that he won't let this be like before, won't let Jackson keep dangerous secrets, but he's still pretty sure pushing this early is the wrong approach.

Danny's always been amused by Jackson's complete inability to hide his emotions. Relief is painted on his face clear as day before he regains control and sneers. “God, who the fuck wakes someone up like that? I was dead yesterday, you can't just—”

“That's not going to keep working, you know. I let you in my bed; that's all you get.”

“Really? A traumatic experience is only good for a few uncomfortable hours of being poked by bedsprings? I'm beginning to think dying wasn't worth it.”

“Whatever.” He shoves Jackson again. “Get up.” Once they're both properly upright, he turns to Jackson, wincing preemptively because he knows there's no way he can make this transition sound natural. “So, you and Lydia?”

“What?”

“The message you left. You called her your girlfriend to Stiles. You guys got back together?”

“Oh, no, I mostly said that to fuck with him. Lydia and I—" Jackson's voice is soft on Lydia's name like it's never been before. “Lydia saved me and I owe her, but we discussed it and we kind of sucked together.”

“Yeah, you did.” Danny tries and fails to hold back a relieved laugh.

“Hey, fuck you. She could have been the love of my life.”

“Yeah, right.” Danny likes Lydia a lot, but she and Jackson have a tendency to bring out the worst in each other when they attempt to be one school-ruling entity. “So, this is a pretty unprecedented display of self-awareness. I assume Lydia was actually the catalyst, and when you say you 'discussed it,' you actually mean she told you.”

“Maybe.”

“So what was it you wanted to talk about?” Danny feels bad about having made the girlfriend thing his first priority, but if being friends with Jackson has taught him anything, it's that petty behavior in serious situations is justified if he wants it enough.

"Don't freak out, okay?" Jackson says it with a smirk on his face like he's sure Danny will, in fact, freak out.   
"I think I'll be fine." He braces himself, determined not to give Jackson the satisfaction.

“ I'm a werewolf. This would be a lot more dramatic if I could show you the transformation, but according to Stilinski it's  _dangerous_ ." He snorts. "Whatever. Enhanced strength and speed though. That's how I got up here. I can demonstrate, do a little reenactment.”

“Please don't jump out my window.” Jackson wouldn't lie about this, _couldn't_ lie about this, even, because Danny knows him too well. But that he's not lying doesn't mean he's right, and Danny has to fight back vivid images of Jackson hitting the ground and dying for real this time.  


“Fine. Do you have anything you don't mind if I break?"

"I just want to emphasize that if this is a joke, we're going to have a serious problem." He misses the days when he wouldn't have considered the statement at all, would have laughed it off immediately because Jackson had never died and come back to life.

"It's not." Jackson grins, painfully sincere. "It's completely true." And Danny, to his horror, finds himself believing it, but he scans the room again anyway, since Jackson clearly wants the opportunity to show off. "Wait, better idea. We're going out back. Get your lacrosse stuff. Pads too."

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yeah, trust me. For your own safety." He smirks like it's a joke, like requiring safety equipment is in some way an insult, but all the same, he refuses to move or explain further until Danny's put on pads and a helmet.

"Fine." Danny thinks he should maybe be a little concerned by how easy it is to ignore common sense and go along with Jackson's stupid plans. Instead, he grabs two sticks and a ball.

"Come on." Jackson leads the way, his shoulders squared and chest puffed out, looking back every so often as if Danny might get lost or wander off. He stops just outside the back door, so abruptly Danny almost bumps into him. After recovering, he waits to see what Jackson will do next. "Well? Get in the goal."

"Asshole." Normally he'd tell Jackson to be less of a dick, maybe force him to say please, but just this once he lets it go and acquiesces. "What now?"   


"Sorry, are you or are you not an award-winning goalie? You can figure it out."   
"Whatever." They've done this often enough that Danny knows Jackson's tells: how he balances on the balls of his toes before he goes in for a jump shot and the way he chews his lip when he plans to aim low, but the first shot still almost makes it into the goal. He's never seen anyone but Scott throw the ball that fast, which. Oh.   
Jackson looks put-out, like he's two seconds away from throwing his stick at Danny and storming off. "Fuck."   
"Just try again, dude." He lobs the ball back and Jackson snags it from the air easily, which seems to increase his confidence a bit. The next shot is almost too fast to react to, and Danny doesn't even manage to get his stick up in time. The one after that rips through the net and shatters against the house. Danny stares at Jackson for a moment. “So...we're not practicing together anymore. I don't want that happening to my head.”

“Please. You wouldn't even be able to get in front of the ball fast enough. I'd have to be aiming for you.”

“That's not as comforting as you think it is. So you did this—”

“Because it's _awesome_.” Danny just waits, and sure enough, after a moment of uncomfortable silence, Jackson blurts out the truth, words blurring together in his urgency. “Because McCall came out of nowhere and he was better than me, even though he didn't have half as much experience and didn't work nearly as hard. I've been captain of every team we've played on since we were kids and he comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden I'm not good enough? After one of our games, all my dad would talk about was _him._ Fuck that.” The tension Danny's used to, the tension that seemed to have disappeared, reasserts itself. “Would you stop looking at me like that and just appreciate this for how cool it is? Don't give me some fucking speech about just doing my personal best because we're not kids anymore and this isn't some perfect world where that's enough.”

“You don't have to be the best at everything. Like me. I'm not the best player on the team. Not even second-best. But people still like me. _You_ still like me. The standard you hold yourself to is about fifty times harsher than the one you have for everyone else.”

“It's different.” Jackson must realize how whiny he sounds, because he tries again, voice deeper and more terse. “It's different.”

Danny considers his response for so long that Jackson gets fidgety. He knows what he says won't fix everything, probably won't fix anything, but letting this go isn't an option. Finally he speaks carefully, wary of messing up. “It isn't. The people who like and care about you won't suddenly stop if they think someone else is better than you at something. We're not that fickle. Clearly your self-worth and your lacrosse ability are related for you, but that's not the basis anyone else is judging you on. And that goes for all of the things you push yourself on. Grades, bowling, videogames, literally any competition ever. They're not representations of you as a person. None of that's why you're my best friend.”

“Yeah? Why then?”

Danny almost laughs. “Because you're really subtle when you fish for compliments.”

“No, seriously. Why?” Jackson stares at him with an odd intensity that borders on desperation.

“Fine. Because you're fun to be around, I guess that's obvious, that's why people have friends.” Danny didn't expect to be this uncomfortable, but with the way Jackson's looking at him, it feels high-stakes. “Because you act like an insensitive, tactless dick, but you always make me feel better when I'm upset. Because I know I can trust you with anything. Because nothing changed between us after I came out, and at the time I kind of wanted this big emotional moment, but in the end it meant more that you were your normal unpleasant self. Because watching you be mean to other people is my secret guilty pleasure. And.” He stops for a moment, then pushes forward, figuring he should probably learn a lesson from this situation, and that the lesson ought to be not to waste time. “And maybe I lied. And you're completely my type.”

Jackson's been smiling the whole time anyway, a small, private smile he'd hide if he could, but at Danny's words, he breaks into a full-blown grin. “Ha! I knew it!”

Danny's heart sinks. All he's done is give Jackson another thing to be arrogant about. He didn't necessarily expect reciprocation, but he didn't expect this either. Which was stupid, admittedly. “Seriously? Fuck you.” He turns to go inside, but Jackson's hand lands on his shoulder, firm and insistent. (He can hear, joking but with an undercurrent of fear, _I was_ dead _yesterday._ ) So he turns back, rationalizing that he'll have to deal with this eventually anyway, though the truth is that he's more sentimental than he'd like to admit. “What?”

They stare at each other in tense silence for far too long before Jackson says, as if Danny has forced it out of him.“I'm maybe a little—  _Fuck._ ” He sputters a few times, then spits out, “You're making this harder than it has to be. Just. Stop fucking looking at me like that.” Danny's not sure what he's doing, exactly, but he averts his eyes anyway.

“Sorry,” he says, and means it, because he knows firsthand how hard this can be, and how bad Jackson is at making himself vulnerable.

Jackson takes a loud, dramatic breath, and Danny looks back up, startled. He doesn't look calmer but he looks determined. “I'm gay. Bi. Whatever. I like guys.” He waves his hand like it doesn't matter, and Danny wonders whether Jackson thinks he's actually taken in by the persona, or if he's doing it for himself. “I was thinking, y'know, is it really fair of me to restrict myself to one gender? What about all the guys out there, like you, who're desperate for a piece of this?”

“So I'm going to assume the second half of that is your colossally obnoxious way of saying you're kind of into me?”

“Yeah. 'Kind of.'” Danny thinks they're both going to be embarrassed by this later, because he personally can't stop smiling like an idiot, and Jackson unconsciously puts _kind of_ in verbal air quotes like it's the most ridiculous understatement he's heard in years. “So how's this work? I've never kissed a guy before; who's the woman?”

“First of all, saying that doesn't make it true. Do you think I don't know what went on at lacrosse camp? And second, this isn't an excuse to make all the gay jokes I wouldn't let you get away with before.”

“Um, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is.” Danny doesn't bother hiding an eyeroll, but its effect is weakened by the fact that he can't stop grinning. 


End file.
